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In the early 1990s, Android head honcho Andy Rubin worked as a low-level Apple engineer. And that, according Apple's latest ITC filing, is grounds enough for them to potentially block Android in the US.

It sounds far-fetched; the bulk of Android's foundational work was completed in the mid-to-late 90s, when Rubin was at General Magic and Danger (the company Google eventually bought, primarily for the operating system). But while extreme, the reasoning may not be as crazy as it sounds, according to FOSS Patents:

Apple now asserts—in a filing with the ITC, which means Apple has a legal obligation to make truthful representations of fact—that Rubin's superiors at Apple were the inventors of that realtime API patent and he worked for them at the very time they made that invention. He worked as a low-level engineer while the inventors were senior people. It's possible that he then contributed to the implementation of the claimed invention.

The implications of this—other than that Apple is being even more aggressive than previously imagined in its suits against HTC and other Android OEMs—are that if Apple were to sue Google directly over this particular patent, they could conceivably get an injunction. Against the entire platform. As well as lots, and lots, and lots, of money.

That's another case somewhere further down the line, if it happens at all. For now, just know that Apple's bringing in the heavy legal artillery—and they might just have a point.[/p]

That's Apple for you, I advise them not to make this foolish step, what do they want? Everyone in the world to own a stupid iPhone?? If they DO open this case any day, they'll go down. Google ain't a Joke.

If this was always the case. Why is it only poping up now? If Apple wanted to kill off Android. Wouldn't they have done this back in the 1.x days? I dint see anything happening. At least, I don't see Android being fully blocked. And I it did happy. People would still import phones, so it isn't possible to fully block it

Apple knows no one will want an iPhone when the 1.5 ghz quad core snapdragon comes out. Even the dual core is better than what's in the new iphone. So this is Apple's response to sucking in the marketplace

They can take their ipads and stuff those also. I picked up two hp touchpads for $250. More powerful that the ipad and honeycomb is being ported. If I have a choice between an open or a closed device I'll pick the open every time and screw them for leaving memory card slots out of every device they have ever made.

Here's what I have to say on this: Apple has never been known for creating powerful products. But they do create some of the markets/product first. Before the iPhone was released, what was there as far as smartphones go? The BlackBerry, Windows MObile, and PalmOS. After Apple came out with the iPhone, then the other smartphones with MultiTouch and pretty graphics started showing up.
While they didn't create this, they were the first company to introduce a GUI-enabled computer to the market. When they released the Lisa, the world balked at them because they thought that the GUI was to kiddish compared to command-line OS's such as DOS. Now look at the world.